"Prizes? I mean, they do offer some decent stuff for the winners, but I'd say most who joined the tourney ain't here for money. Fame, maybe, or just to get experience for some young un's, but otherwise? I'd say nowadays most of the regulars in the tourney are just in it for a good fight.

Crazy battle addicts, all of them. Exactly the way we love to see them." - Justin Woodriver, resident of Sabaya and loyal fan of the tournament.

"There aren't that many rules, are there?" Cal asked to Lazlo, who was seated beside her in the audience stands. They had some of the best seats, right by the side of the arena, with Kino and Dan seated on Cal's other side.

The current emperor of Elmaiya - a young man, probably not even thirty, of mixed human, therian, and likely some orcish blood - had just given his speech to open the quinquennial tournament. He was followed by the head adjudicator, who was an archmage working for the imperial court, who read the rules for the audience's benefit.

Cal technically already knew the rules of the tournament, as her students and nieces were all briefed on it when they signed up. Having it read by an official gave a different feel, though, especially considering how few actual rules were there at all.

"That's how it's always been," replied Lazlo demurely from beside her. Cal had met the three siblings again a week ago while walking around town, and learned that when they weren't busy, and were in the neighborhood, Azturia and Zira were regular participants to the tourney.

The rules for the tournament themselves were few in number. Killing by accident results in disqualification, and to do so in purpose would result in the perpetrator being treated like a murderer. Otherwise, there were basically no rules.

Many of the city's best healers - even most of the imperial court's healers - were enlisted and on standby to heal injured participants. Although each participant had to sign a waiver that verified that they knew the tournament had a risk of death, actual deaths were rare.

Cal naturally had not let her students go into the tournament as they were though. She gave them specific instructions, ways in which they had to limit themselves, so that even the early parts of the tournament would be a challenge in some ways. Her nieces, and Fheeri, she allowed to just do what they liked, since they just wanted to try how far they could go after all.

The first day of the tournament would be the preliminaries, in which most of the participants would be weeded out. As a popular tournament with a long history, there were at least ten thousand participants who came to try their hand at the tournament this year.

After the preliminaries - which was slated to take place over three days - ended, there would be all of five hundred and twelve left out of those ten thousand. Already the vast arena in the middle of the colosseum was configured into nine raised square platforms.

Nine groups of participants would take to those stages at a time, each group comprised of nineteen to twenty people, out of which only the last person standing would be allowed to continue to the main tournament.

The groups were decided by the letter groupings they had received early on, with every participant in one group belonging to the same grouping, and otherwise the allocation of participants was left to luck. As luck would have it, all of Cal's students and nieces happened to be allocated to the first day of the preliminaries.

"How do they handle it for the senior group?" she asked to Lazlo, who was more familiar with the tournament in general.

"There's usually not that many participants for the senior group, so they just skip the preliminaries for them," he said in reply. "Heard there were only like four hundred or so this year in total. They'll have their tourney rounds after the juniors are done, so as not to steal the limelight, so to speak."

As they spoke, the first nine groups of participants walked out from the gates of the arena, to the cheers of the spectators. Cal turned her attention back to the arena, and noticed Elaina amongst those in the first nine groups.

Cal watched as her niece walked towards one of the raised areas. Her group had nineteen people - four of the five groups were of nineteen - including her, and she drew some looks from her fellow participants as she strode confidently up the stage, with her long spear resting on her shoulder.

The signal for the fight to begin was very obvious. A muscular royal guard picked up a large scepter, and with it, struck a massive gong. The noise it caused reverberated through the arena, and at the same time, violence erupted in all nine stages.

Cal's attention was naturally directed towards Elaina, as she was curious to see how her niece would fare in such a melee. Two participants who started the fight next to her had charged at her from both sides, but most of the rest seemed too busy with others to pay her any attention.

Elaina's response satisfied Cal, as she met the charge of one of her opponents head on. A discreet shock of lightning passed through her opponent's weapon as they clashed, which caused them to halt briefly in surprise. Enough time for Elaine to whirl around and land a spinning kick to her opponent's jaw, which put the man down for the count.

The spin also brought her around to face her other opponent, who was just about to reach her. Elaina parried her opponent's spear with the shaft of her own weapon, then pushed it low, and stepped on the spearhead before her opponent could retract it.

Her opponent brought up his shield and blocked her counterswing, but she used the blades protruding from the sides of her spearhead to pull his shield away instead, which unbalanced the man and nearly made him stumble.

The next thing the man knew, one of the blades on Elaina's spear was pressed against his throat, just barely touching his skin. The feeling of cold, keen mithril on his skin made the man shiver, which opened a small cut on his throat, and he dropped his spear and shield, raising his hand as a sign of capitulation.

Less than half of the original nineteen participants were left on the stage at that point, and the rest had seen how effortlessly Elaina just dispatched two opponents. She found herself surrounded by the remaining seven, who watched her almost as much as they watched each other.

There were several options she could take in such a situation. Play their suspicion on each other and shake up the clearly loose alliance, for one. Instead, Elaina just went with shock and awe.

A bright burst of lightning that pained the eye to look at flashed for a moment in the arena, and when the audience who happened to be watching had blinked and cleared their eyes, they saw that four of the seven participants that surrounded Elaina now lay twitching on the ground.

Another of them walked towards her in pained, twitchy motions, before he flopped to the ground after a couple steps.

The last two watched as Elaina smiled, and made a bolt of lightning wrap around her spear, as it jumped around from point to point, looked at each other, then dropped their weapons and surrendered